Catilina's Riddle Read Free Page B

too far on her own."
    - 10 -

    "Ah, how big the farm must seem to a six-year-old. This ridge must be a mountain, the wall a great fortification, the stream a mighty river.
    And Meto, does he like the country?"
    "He grew up away from the city, down in Baiae, on the coast."
    Claudia looked at me oddly. "Adopted, like his older brother," I explained. I did not add that Meto had been born a slave; others might discover that fact, but not from me. "So country ways come naturally to him. He was happy enough in the city, but he likes it here as well."
    "And your wife, Bethesda?"
    "There are women who have the power to remake whatever corner of the world they occupy to suit themselves; she is one. Besides, all places pale when compared to her native Alexandria. Rome could not match it, so why should the Etruscan countryside? But in truth I think she misses the big markets and the gossip, the smell of fish at the waterfront, the crush of the Forum on festival days, all the rush and madness of the city. "And you?"
    "What about me?"
    "Do you miss those things?"
    "Not for a moment!"
    She looked at me shrewdly, but not without sympathy. "Gordianus, I have not been the sole mistress and overseer of two generations of conniving slaves, not to mention the customer of every cunning auc-tioneer and merchant between here and Rome for the last forty years, without learning to discern when a man is being less than honest with me. You are not happy here, and the reason has nothing to do with quarreling neighbors or missing your son in the city. You are homesick."
    "Nonsense!"
    "You are bored."
    "With a farm to run?"
    "And lonely."
    "With my family around me?"
    "Not bored because you have nothing to do; bored because you miss the unexpected adventures of the city. Not lonely for lack of loved ones, but lonely for new strangers to come into your life. Oh, the loneliness for strangers is nothing new to country dwellers; I have known it all my life. Don't you think I grow weary of my little circle of Cousin Publius and Cousin Manius and Cousin Gnaeus and their slaves, and long for a new face to appear in my world? Which is why I like talking to you, Gordianus. But I was raised in the country and you in the city, so it must be much worse for you, this boredom and loneliness."
    "Well, there may be some truth in what you say, Claudia, but you can't say that I miss the city. I couldn't wait to leave it! It's all right for younger men, or those who are driven by their vices—there is no place
    - 11 -

    like Rome for a man to satisfy his ambition for power or his lust or greed, or to die in the pursuit. No, I've turned my back on all that. The fact that Lucius died and left me this farm was the will of the gods, smiling on me, showing me a way out. Rome has become unlivable—filthy, overcrowded, noisy, and violent. Only a madman could go on living there!"
    "But your work—"
    "I miss that least of all! Do you know what I did for a living? I called myself a Finder. Advocates hired me to find proof of their enemy's crimes. Politicians—may I never see another!—hired me to uncover scandal about their adversaries. I once thought that I served truth, and through truth, justice, but truth and justice are meaningless words in Rome. They might as well be obliterated from the Latin tongue. I discover a man is guilty of some heinous crime, only to see him acquitted by a bribed panel of judges! I learn that a man is innocent, then see him convicted on spurious evidence and hounded out of the city! I discover that the scandal attached to a powerful man is true enough, but for all that he is a sound and honest man who has only the same failings as other men; even so, the scandal is all that anyone cares about, and he is expelled from the Senate, and the true reason is some political maneuvering by his enemies, whose true agenda I can only guess at. Meanwhile a total scoundrel charms the mob and bribes their leaders and gets himself elected consul! I used to think